A gleam of amusement played about the Frenchman’s teeth: 

“I?  Oh, yes, sir!  Once upon a time I cherished the hope of emerging; I no longer have illusions.  I shave these specimens for a living, and shall shave them till the day of judgment.  But leave a letter with me by all means; he will come back.  There’s an overcoat of his here on which he borrowed money—­it’s worth more.  Oh, yes; he will come back—­a youth of principle.  Leave a letter with me; I’m always here.”

Shelton hesitated, but those last three words, “I’m always here,” touched him in their simplicity.  Nothing more dreadful could be said.

“Can you find me a sheet of paper, then?” he asked; “please keep the change for the trouble I am giving you.”

“Thank you,” said the Frenchman simply; “he told me that your heart was good.  If you don’t mind the kitchen, you could write there at your ease.”

Shelton wrote his letter at the table of this stone-flagged kitchen in company with an aged, dried-up gentleman; who was muttering to himself; and Shelton tried to avoid attracting his attention, suspecting that he was not sober.  Just as he was about to take his leave, however, the old fellow thus accosted him: 

“Did you ever go to the dentist, mister?” he said, working at a loose tooth with his shrivelled fingers.  “I went to a dentist once, who professed to stop teeth without giving pain, and the beggar did stop my teeth without pain; but did they stay in, those stoppings?  No, my bhoy; they came out before you could say Jack Robinson.  Now, I shimply ask you, d’you call that dentistry?” Fixing his eyes on Shelton’s collar, which had the misfortune to be high and clean, he resumed with drunken scorn:  “Ut’s the same all over this pharisaical counthry.  Talk of high morality and Anglo-Shaxon civilisation!  The world was never at such low ebb!  Phwhat’s all this morality?  Ut stinks of the shop.  Look at the condition of Art in this counthry! look at the fools you see upon th’ stage! look at the pictures and books that sell!  I know what I’m talking about, though I am a sandwich man.  Phwhat’s the secret of ut all?  Shop, my bhoy!  Ut don’t pay to go below a certain depth!  Scratch the skin, but pierce ut—­Oh! dear, no!  We hate to see the blood fly, eh?”

Shelton stood disconcerted, not knowing if he were expected to reply; but the old gentleman, pursing up his lips, went on: 

“Sir, there are no extremes in this fog-smitten land.  Do ye think blanks loike me ought to exist?  Whoy don’t they kill us off?  Palliatives—­palliatives—­and whoy?  Because they object to th’ extreme course.  Look at women:  the streets here are a scandal to the world.  They won’t recognise that they exist—­their noses are so dam high!  They blink the truth in this middle-class counthry.  My bhoy”—­and he whispered confidentially—­“ut pays ’em.  Eh? you say, why shouldn’t they, then?” (But Shelton had not spoken.) “Well, let’em!